


Inevitable

by Shabby Abby (KJPearl)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cancer, F/F, Fae & Fairies, Fantasy, Magic, Minor Character Death implied, Tarot, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 16:40:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7230391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KJPearl/pseuds/Shabby%20Abby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When June left the house to clear her head she didn't expect to find a fairy who promised to cure her mother's cancer.<br/>All magic comes with a cost, it's just a question of how much you're willing to lose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inevitable

June wandered through the mall, hands tucked deep in the pockets of her green hoodie. She hadn’t thought about where she was going. She just needed to get out. Away from the house with Mom, away from Mom’s doctors and from their endless whispering. June wasn’t stupid. She knew what it meant when her father hired the most expensive cancer specialist in the country and he just said, “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing we can do.”

It meant Mom was as good as dead already. June didn’t want to think that. June wasn’t sure how to stop thinking that. All the doctors said she still had several months, maybe even a year. They all told her to appreciate the time they had left, but June didn’t think she could. Not when she saw her mom, the woman who’d taught her to play tennis, who’d gone jogging with her every morning, stuck in bed, her tanned skin having faded to a sickly grey.

June didn’t know how she could help. She was nineteen and terrified and her mother needed her. But she needed her mother. It was all so confused. She’d come here to escape it, but her thoughts just followed her. She needed to do something. Anything.

She walked around the familiar mall for a while, circling the stores she’d known all her life. There was the boutique where she and Mom had bought her grade eight prom dress. There was the restaurant they went to for their “girls’ night”. It suddenly seemed like the whole mall was haunted by memories. Then she noticed something new, a small new-age hippie shop which stood out like a glaring beacon among the chain stores which filled the mall. Crystals glinted by the window, reflecting the purple light of the strange lamps the owner had set up. She felt herself head towards it without really knowing why.

“Come on back, sweetheart,” a warm voice called when she entered. June followed the voice, past the wooden shelves which filled the store. She saw crystals in every shape, size and colour, bottles of what she could only assume were “potions” and what seemed like a real human skull. June was beginning to wonder if coming here had been a good decisions when she finally reached the back room. She walked through the gaudy bead curtain and came face to face with the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen. Her messy black curls and teasing black eyes spoke of mischief and her smooth brown skin showed she couldn’t be much older than June. She smiled widely, revealing shining white teeth, “Welcome. What brings you here?”

“I’m not really sure?” June bit  the inside of her cheek gently. This was a bad idea.

“Well then. Maybe you’re here to find out. Sit,” the girl gestured to a yellow cushion, one of the many littering the floor, “I’ll read you, free of charge.”

“Read me?” June asked.

“A tarot reading. It’ll give me an idea of why you're here,” the girl smiled her mysterious smile and June could almost understand why people would believe she was magical. She sat, still skeptical, but she supposed this would get her mind off Mom, whose sickly face haunted her even when she left the house.

Then the girl stepped forward and June finally saw the most unusual thing about her. The girl had wings, and not just fake tulle ones. These wings had been carefully folded against her back but opened for a few moments to help her balance as she settled herself on a cushion. They were shaped like enormous butterfly wings, but coloured a black so dark they seemed to steal the light from the room. 

“What are you?” June gasped, wondering if this was all some grief-hallucination. Did grief even give people hallucinations?

“What do you think?” the girl’s smile never faltered. In fact it seemed to even widen, teasingly.

“You look like, well, um. A fairy? But that’s crazy, fairies aren’t—”

“I am a fairy. But hush. No more questions or you’ll be required to leave. And trust me, you want to stay. This store is only visible to people with a great need that I can help. If you go it won’t appear again.”

June frowned, there was so much she wanted to know. How in the world could fairies be real? Were there other magical creatures? She held her questions in because she knew her “great need” could only mean one thing. Mom. She would listen to this girl, this fairy, if there was any chance it could help her mom. No matter how weird this was. She would risk it for Mom.

“Please shuffle the cards,” the girl handed her a deck of large cards. As June began to shuffle she explained, “This is my tarot deck. If I give you a reading, just a simple three card spread, I’ll be able to find you what you need.”

June deftly shuffled, remembering how Mom had taught her during one of their family “poker nights”. She could almost hear Mom gently warning not use too much pressure and bend the cards. She silently passed the deck to the girl after a few moments.

The girl pulled out the top three cards and set them in a row, face down, “These will represent your past, present, and possible future.”

“Possible future?” June asked.

“The future is never set in stone, and if you’re here it’s probably so I can help you change yours.”

“Why would you help me?”

“Well, you’ll be expected to pay. The reading is free, whatever it tells you…well, you probably already know. The remedy will cost you. All magic comes with a cost,” the girl’s smile stayed as bright as ever but something about it seemed sharper somehow. She flipped over the first card, the past. It was a picture of angel pouring water from one cup into another.

“Temperance,” the girl said, “a balanced life with a long term goal. You’re on the road to success. The angel represents someone in your life who supports you on this path.”

She flipped the next card and June’s eyes widened. This one depicted a frail woman sitting up in bed, her head in her hands as swords floated ominously over her head. The girl’s smile faltered slightly, “Nine of swords. It represents fear, hopelessness, despair. Something has happened to your angel and you are aimless. Now, your future if it continues,” she turned over the last card. A person dressed entirely in black, ornate golden goblets in disarray around their feet.

“Five of cups, loss,” the girl explained, but June already knew and simply nodded, feeling tears fall down her cheeks for the first time since she’d heard the news.

“My mother,” June found herself babbling, “she has cancer. The doctors can’t do anything for her. And I just—I can’t do anything for her! She needs me and there’s nothing I can do.”

It was freeing to know that someone else  finally knew. Not her parents who were struggling even more than her, but a stranger. Perhaps even someone she could confide in.

The girl leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her, “That’s why you’re here, sweetheart. I can do something.”

“You can?”

“As long as you pay the right price I can do anything. That’s how magic works,” the girl ran her hands soothingly up and down June’s back.

“I’ll pay whatever it takes for a spell or potion or…anything to cure my mom,” June pulled back and looked the girl in the eyes, “How much do you need?”

“I don’t need money. No, for magic this big I’ll need something much more valuable…” the girl seemed to be thinking, “To save a life. Hm, that will need memories.”

“Memories?”

“Yes. I’ll need your happiest and saddest memories of your mother.”

“How do I give you memories?”

“The magic will take them. And I do mean take, you’ll never be able to remember those moments again.”

“So? Two memories is nothing compared to my mom’s life.”

“Don’t be so blasé. You’ll lose whatever you learnt from those memories. How ever they affected your relationship with your mother—gone.”

“I don’t care. If she lives I’ll have time to make more!”

“Well two memories is all it will take to make the spell,” the girl mumbled. June didn’t know what to think. She was pretty sure this should cost more, but too scared to bring it up in case the girl upped the price to something she couldn’t afford.

“I’ll pay,” June said. The girl walked up to her and held a hand to her temple. June could feel something sifting through her memories of her mom, each one going through her mind for an instant. Finally the magic stopped on one, her first time riding a bike.

She was six years old and terrified, but Mom held onto her back. Mom kept her steady and pushed her forward. She felt safe in the knowledge Mom would always be there. Even after Mom let go, the training wheels Mom had bought held her up safely. Suddenly the memory froze and vanished.

In its place she felt another memory, a distant echo of something not quite her own. Her first time flying. Mama spreading her bark-like wings and reminding her that falling was natural. Everyone falls, flying is just falling more slowly. To appreciate the view, Mama always joked.

June returned to her own memories and once again they sped by until she reached the memory of her parents sitting her down to tell her the news that Mom was sick. Everything would be fine, her father promised, cancer research had made leaps in the past decade and Mom would be treated by the best doctors money could buy. June had believed him, she’d had to. What could she do without Mom? But as the months passed it became more and more clear, her mother’s condition was still deteriorating, just more slowly.

And just as quickly this memory was replaced by another. Sitting on Mama’s lap as she explained, with the calm of a fairy who had lived for centuries, that she was dying. She herself was distraught, still too young to comprehend such peace with death. Mama wiped away her tears with a gentle hand. 

“Everyone dies,” Mama had whispered, “Life is just postponing the inevitable in order to appreciate the view.”

June returned to reality with a shuddering gasp. Her eyes opened to meet with black ones, looking at her with so much concern and caring. With empathy. An empathy she finally understood.

“Your mother,” June said, “Something happened to her. That’s why you’re doing this for so little. Just memories. Not even really those, I guess, since you gave me yours.”

“She died when I was young, of a fairy sickness. I couldn’t cure her,” the girl’s smile was entirely gone now, “but I can cure your mother. Here.”

“Thank you,” June whispered, taking the small vial of green liquid the girl held out.

“You understand now, though? This will cure the cancer, but your mother is destined to die in a year. All I can do is let her be healthy until then.”

“I know,” June whispered. And she realized that she did. Living was about postponing the inevitable. Living was about appreciating the time you had.

“Then go!” the girl turned away.

And June left. It felt wrong somehow, but she had no time to think as she ran home. Ran to her mother in a way she never had before. Ran not because she needed it but because her mother did.

She reached her bike, parked in front of the mall, and stared at it. She’d forgotten how to ride. June froze. She knew how to ride a bike, she had to know, she’d biked to the mall. And logically she knew that. But she also knew that she had somehow forgotten how to ride a bike. And then she realized, bike riding must have been in one of the memories she’d lost. She struggled to think back but it was futile, the memory was gone and she wasn’t even sure the entirety of what she’d lost. She shuddered and turned away from the bike. She’d walk home.

The fifteen minute walk from the mall to her house had never seemed so long. She couldn’t stop thinking about the horrible loss of her ability to ride a bike. The feeling of missing something she couldn’t even remember having. Once she got home she made a beeline for the kitchen and found the jar of Mom’s favourite cookies. She grabbed one and poured the potion on, knowing she would never be able to explain her strange encounter at the mall to her parents.

“Hi, Mom,” June entered her mom’s bedroom quietly, “I brought your favourite cookie.”

“June,” Mom smiled, “I feel like I haven’t seen you in so long.”

And she hadn’t, June realized with shame. She’d been avoiding her own mother in what would have been their last months together, “I’m sorry. I jus—I’m sorry.”

“That’s alright, darling. Why don’t you give me the cookie you brought?” Mom carefully changed the subject and June handed the cookie over gratefully.

“I love you, Mom,” June sat with Mom until she fell asleep. Then she headed down the hallway to her own bedroom. She sat on her bed, the weight of the day finally hitting her. Something about the strange store had allowed her to accept the appearance of a fairy. Now that she was at home something shifted. She almost couldn’t believe it…except that her memories  _ were _ gone. June fell asleep, unsure how to deal with the knowledge that magic was real. And the knowledge that she would probably never see it again.

Over the next month June saw her mom getting healthier and healthier, until she was able to leave the house again. June and her mother began to go on their daily jogs again, every morning at eight o’clock. June cherished those mornings in a way she never had before, remembering her words to the girl in a store, a promise to make new memories. June’s thoughts often returned to the girl who had given her so much for nothing, wondering who she was. Wondering how she had felt, being able to save everyone but her own mother. 

It was on one of their morning jogs that June finally told her mother about the girl she’d met, leaving out the bit where the “girl” was a fairy who had cured her mom.

“I’m glad you found someone to talk to,” her mom said.

“I just wish I knew more about her,” June sighed.

“So go back,” Mom gave her a knowing smile, “talk to her some more.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to find the store again,” June felt her stomach clench painfully at the thought.

“You have to try.”

That afternoon June went back. She walked to the spot where the store had been but found nothing there. She felt a sense of sadness engulf her, before she pushed it away. Aimless moping would get her nowhere, as she had already learnt. She just had to think. How to find a magical store? And suddenly she remembered, all it took was great need. 

June thought of the kind girl with her teasing eyes. A girl who had saved her mom. A girl she hadn’t thanked. A girl whose name she had never even learnt. Then she began to walk. She felt a sense of deja vu as she wandered around the mall. Then she saw it, the exact same store, somewhere entirely different. She felt a grin stretch across her face as she walked in.

“How did you get here?” the girl rushed out from the back of the store, her brow furrowed with concern, “The store should have vanished. Did something go wrong with the potion?”

“No. It’s just— you gave me your memories. You didn’t have to, but you did,” June said.

The girl said nothing.

“I just wanted to ask you your name.”

“Hope,” the girl smiled. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for class but I'm pretty proud of it so...


End file.
